Serifos

Serifos is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, located in the Cyclades archipelago. During Classical antiquity, Danae and her infant son Perseus washed ashore on Serifos after her father Acrisius sent them adrift at sea in a wooden chest to avert a prophecy that his grandson would kill him. When Perseus returned to Serifos with the head of Medusa, he turned King Polydektes and his retainers to stone as punishment for the King's attempt to marry his mother by force. During the Roman imperial period, Serifos became a place of exile, and it became a minor dependency of the Republic of Venice after 1204. In the 19th century, the island experienced a modest economic boom from exploitation of the island's extensive iron ore deposits, but the mines closed during the 1960s, and the island depended on tourism and small-scale agriculture. In 2011, Serifos had a population of 1,420 people.